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I'm retiring this mirror blog, after the launch of my new website. I'm pretty sure very few people actually followed this mirror. My new blog is right on my new site's front page, and it has a new RSS feed. You can also get more frequent updates from me on Twitter and Facebook.

48 copies of MISTBORN (mm) to be given away along with ALLOY broadsheets and a handful of ALLOY galleys

Alloy of Law Tour- Updated from Brandon's website*

Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego

Date: 11.09.11 Time: 7:00 pm-10:00 pm

Place: Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore

Address: 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Suite #302

San Diego, CA 92111

Phone: (858) 268-4747

Barnes & Noble, Huntington Beach, CA

Date: 11.10.11 Time: 7:00 pm-10:00 pm

Place: Barnes & Noble Booksellers – Bella Terra

Address: 7881 Edinger Ave. #110

Huntington Beach, CA 92647

Phone: 714-897-8781

University Books, Seattle

Date: 11.11.11 Time: 7:00 pm-10:00 pm

Place: University Book Store, Seattle

Address: University Books

University Temple United Methodist Church

1415 NE 43rd St.

Seattle, WA 98105

Phone: 800.335.7323

Type: Signing

schedule: 11/11/11 is a cool date. But Brandon will most likely be finished well before 11:11 p.m.

Notes:

***THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT***

Please see the link for an explanation!

***VENUE RESCHEDULEThis post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules

This is a signing with University Books, but it's taking place at the University Temple United Methodist Church.

Chapters, Vancouver BC, Canada

Date: 11.12.11 Time: 2:00 pm-5:00 pm

Place: Chapters Metrotown

Address: Metropolis, Metrotown 4700 Kingsway

Burnaby, British Columbia V5H 4M1

Canada

Phone: (604) 431-0463

Joseph-Beth, Lexington, KY

Date: 11.14.11 Time: 9:00 pm-10:00 pm

Place: Joseph-Beth Booksellers

Address: 161 Lexington Green Cir # B

Lexington, KY 40503

Phone: (859) 273-2911

Notes: Tickets are required for this event and available with the purchase of The Alloy of Law, available Nov. 8th. Limited VIP tickets are available for Gives Back Members.

Murder by the Book, Houston

Date: 11.15.11 Time: 6:30 pm-9:30 pm

Place: Murder by the Book

Address: 2342 Bissonnet St

Houston TX 77005

Phone: 713-524-8597

Notes: Store policy requires that you buy one copy of THE ALLOY OF LAW at the store to get anything signed. Pretty sure you can buy it there ahead of time and bring your receipt; call to make sure. They can also get books signed for you if you can't attend; see their site and/or call for details.

Barnes & Noble, Brooklyn, NY

Date: 11.16.11 Time: 7:00 pm-10:00 pm

Place: Barnes & Noble Booksellers – Park Slope

Address: 267 7th Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11215

Phone: 718-832-9066

Notes: PLEASE BE AWARE: This will be a SIGNING ONLY event. There is not enough space for a standard reading and Q&A. If you have questions for Brandon, you may ask them while he's signing your specific books, but please be courteous to everyone else waiting to get their books signed.

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Here we are: the finish line. I've completed my review of all of Brandon's TWG posts. I decided not to review Peter's at this time; the one thing I knew I wanted to find was the Dragonsteel excerpt that Peter had posted there once, but it was part of the recently released chapters, so I don't feel the need to dig for it anymore. That closes out the last thing I wanted to review of Brandon's social media; I haven't gotten it all into Arcanum yet (the new WoB Archive, in case any of you haven't heard), but I plan on getting it in before release. You'll be able to see everything I found from looking at the Blog, TWG, and old Twitter events, come November 8th. But that's still a week and a half away, which means today, I'll start with one of my new WoBs, instead of putting it at the end. This is a bit of workshopping Brandon did for an Elantris sequel name:

Quote

Okay, so here's the thing. I want to write a sequel to ELANTRIS someday--or, at least, I want to leave myself open to the possibility.

The first book is named after the city of Elantris, where most of the action takes place. The sequel, set ten years after the first book, will take place in the capitol city of the prime antagonists in the series. For cohesion, this book should probably be named after that city.

So, here's the problem. Usually I have months and months to settle on a book title, and I'm usually pretty happy with what I get. However, I don't have an opportunity to write the book this time before I name it. I mention the city that will be the title of the next book several times in ELANTRIS. I have to make certain I really like this city name now, since I'll probably name a book after it sometime in the future.

So, I've been digging for ideas. The country the book will take place in is called 'Fjorden.' As you might guess from that name, the dialectical genre of the culture is a Scandinavian spin-off. (It's kind of a guttural Norse--Scandinavian with some harsh Germanic sounds thrown in.)

Other words in the language:

Hrathen
Dilaf
Arteth
Dakhor
Grondkest
Svorden

I need a name for the new city that would work well as a book title (i.e., it needs to be fairly easy to pronounce, and needs to sound cool) but that still fits with the linguistic style of the region.

Here are some I've come up with so far. What do you think of these? Which is your favorite? Which don't you like?

Zinareth
Widor
Velding
Klynair
Valinrath
Skaln
Vallensha
Vallinor

That's the opening post, but there's quite a bit more discussion of it in this old TWG thead. This gives you a hint of what the fandom was like back in the day before Brandon was published. Pretty jealous, aren't you?

Closing Thoughts

I think this was a very valuable project, both for me personally (I learned a bunch of old WoBs, and managed to get myself onto the Arcanum team) and for the community (especially since I was able to get all the old Reddit stuff out a couple of months back). Definitely glad I did it.

As far as the actual database I created... Arcanum is explicitly not a database. It works mainly on its search engine, with tags designed primarily to support that. I still feel pretty strongly that a relational database, with properly applied tag intersections, is something that would close a lot of gaps and help with both casual research and focused searches. I'm not able to work directly with Arcanum... but I can actually tweak my existing Microsoft Access structure to use Arcanum event numbers and entry numbers, and then tinker on my own with some of the areas I think Arcanum can be improved on. Stuff like superseded WoBs, excluding writing advice, sorting by series, curated lists... I've got a whole bunch of ideas I think would be neat. It wouldn't be terribly practical, since I wouldn't have any of the actual WoB text there, but I think it would be a fun project to keep on the back burner. And an excuse to go through all the Arcanum WoBs and transcriptions, which would be fun to do anyways.

If I ever get anything serious rolling with that, I might reopen this blog. But for now, my WoB Database is officially closed. Hope you enjoyed the ride.

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Prompt: A Genie offers you one wish, and you modestly wish to have a very productive 2017. The genie misunderstands, and for the rest of your life, every 20:17 you become impossibly productive for just 60 seconds.

“Well, it was a nice day.” You kiss your sweetheart gently on the forehead and sigh as the last remaining seconds of 20:16 tick away. “See you at 8:18,” you say.

Then it happens. Every ounce of fatigue or hunger leaves your body. The face of your beloved is perfectly still, their expression exactly the same. The ticking of the clock on the wall has stopped. Once again, it’s 20:17.

You stretch your arms and walk to the table with the homework for the three doctorates you’re working on. The work is mentally stimulating and enjoyable, but it’s finished far too quickly. You check your pocket watch and see that not even one hundredth of a second has passed.

You knew it was too soon to be able to see any movement on the watch, but you can never quite help yourself from looking early on every 20:17. Time to move on.

You clean your home, do your budget, then go outside and fix a noise that your car was making earlier that afternoon. (Oh how you already miss afternoons.) Then you go back inside, boot up your computer (which magically speeds up to keep pace with you as long as you’re in contact with it) and check for any new orders.

You’ve set up a website for the small business you started called “Magic Elf Services.” People in your area can pay a modest fee on your site to have different tasks and odd jobs done by “The Magic Elf” at 8:17pm every day. It was a little slow to get started, but word has spread and these days you have a steady stream of clients.

The money that comes in from the business is nice, but you’re mostly grateful that it gives you a clear list of things to do. You print off your updated list of clients, step outside, and start making your way through the neighborhood with your to-do list.

There’s the apartments down your street where several neighbors have hired you to tidy up, do the dishes, and mop the floors. You do the windows too, just to see if they notice. There’s the large house across town that paid the “Magic Elf” to clean out the gutters. After the first dozen jobs are done, you manage to stop looking at your pocket watch.

As near as you’ve been able to determine in the past, 20:17 seems to last for approximately one normal year. But it’s not exact. For one thing, it’s hard to keep track of “time” when everything but you has crawled to an almost total standstill. For another thing, time seems to move differently depending on how “productive” your behavior is. One time you tried to spend all of 20:17 sitting at home in your pajamas, but that was getting you nowhere, so you eventually gave up and got busy. (Though you defiantly stayed in your pajamas the whole time.)

During 20:17 your body doesn’t get tired, hungry, sick, or injured. You’re essentially tireless and immortal for the duration of the “minute.” So sleeping or eating away your boredom has never really worked for you.

One of the houses on your list forgot to follow the instructions and leave a key for you to get in. At first you figure you’ll just send them an email telling them to pay more attention and that you’ll do the job tomorrow. Then you decide to go home, get your locksmith tools, and come back.

After finishing up all the jobs on your list, you go into several other homes and small businesses in the area, performing tasks you hope they’ll find helpful, and leaving a hand-painted business card at each one. (The business cards don’t contain your real name just in case somebody thinks “The Magic Elf” should be subject to breaking and entering laws.)

Speaking of laws, you head down to the local police station to pick up your case file. You’ve been in contact with a detective who’s been investigating corruption within their department, and your ability to investigate unseen and get in almost anywhere between the ticks of the clock has proven invaluable. You see that they’ve also added five missing person cases to your file this evening, which certainly raises your interest in the job.

You make your way through town gathering evidence, and start making your way to the outskirts of town. Since you happen to be out that way (and you’ve already solved three of the five missing person cases) you decide to swing by the stone castle you’re building and do some more work there.

The castle walls stand about 20 feet right now, but you know they’ll be much higher when you’re done. You’re far from any roads and pretty safely tucked away, so for now it’s your little secret. You’ve been excavating and moving all the rock yourself, which has been much easier than you first expected since your body doesn’t get tired or sore. You’ve also got a nice system of tunnels going underneath the castle, and you dig and build more of that network for a while.

All that time spent underground has left you feeling rather lonely, so you walk back home to see the face of your sweetheart. Their facial expression has moved ever so slightly since you last saw them, which is a comfort to you. Looking at them gets your imagination going and makes you dream up a story you’d like to tell, so you sit on your couch, plug in your laptop, and write a book.

After you finish editing the last chapter for the third time, you finally allow yourself to look at your pocket watch again. Three seconds have officially passed so far.

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I'm buying myself flowers now.
I'm walking out of rooms I don't want to be in and people I don't want to see with ease.
I'm strolling downtown with flowers in my hair, makeup on my face, and a smile on my lips.
I flirt with the sun and the moon and the boy reading a book on the park bench.
I'm not leashed to you anymore. I'm not worried about you. I'm not afraid of you anymore.
My lipstick is leaving marks on everything I touch and I'm not cleaning up the mess I don't care if you see what I've been talking to.
I'm climbing mountains now to see the sunset and I don't have to wait for you.
I'm talking loudly, I'm writing courageously, I'm living boldly.
I wrote a poem for myself and shouted it from the top of the world.
I kiss my own reflection.
Don't come crawling back to me, heart dripping in your hands.
You'll offer it to me saying "do with it as you wish"
And I'll say "throw it at passing cars, feed it to stray dogs, burn it, I don't want it anymore, I don't want you anymore."

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I'd like to start out with an apology. It's been, what, almost a year since I've posted anything? In fairness, I was in the middle of my senior year at high school, but considering all the free time I did have, there's really no excuse for the utter lack of material. Sorry about that!

I first had the idea for this post on the Fourth of July, 2015. Night had fallen, and I was in my backyard, keeping an eye on both the neighborhood fireworks and what stars were visible. I started thinking to myself, “why do some people feel so worthless whenever they think about outer space?” Maybe it has something to do with my religious background or perhaps my general interest in astronomy, but where other people see the vast distances between galaxies and suddenly feel insignificant, I look up and get excited. That's one reason I love shows like Doctor Who and Star Trek so much, because of that attitude that space is exciting and has so much to offer and let's go explore all the things.

Anyways, I had planned to head inside and wax eloquent about that for a bit, but I got delayed and this post got shunted to the back of my mind.

Until I took a Shakespeare class, that is.

See, one of our assignments was to write a sonnet. After a good hour of banging my head against the desk, I finally got the idea to write about my love of astronomy. It took me a while to get going, but I was pretty proud of the end result. And then it hit me – I've been trying to sit down and write about how awesome the universe is for almost a year now, and I just accidentally did it. In poetry, no less.

So, after some more unfortunate delays, I finally have the pleasure to show you all that sonnet, which summarizes my thoughts on this subject wonderfully.

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This blog will have things that have already been explored by others but which I need to lay out for myself. Or potentially new ideas which I need to refine (and check if others have not yet theorised on) before posting on the forums.

2. The metals are a filter. For example, burning Tin means drawing Investiture from Preservation or Ruin (in the case of Atium), and Tin turns the Investiture into sensory enhancement.

3. Compounding is drawing Investiture into your soul and turning it into a nonstandard (non-Allomantic) type of power, by changing a metal's "signature" via feruchemically charging it.

4. Feruchemy is a zero-sum internal magic, Allomancy is a net-gain external magic. Compounding is using the net-gain Allomancy, but turning Investiture into Feruchemical powers rather than standard Allomantic powers.

5. The final step of Compounding is (usually) storing the net-gain, superboosted attribute into another metalmind.

6. Standard Feruchemy stores an attribute given by the user into a metalmind. With this final step, Compounding stores an attribute provided by Preservation/Ruin into a metalmind.

7. The Lord Ruler turned Atium into an Atiummind, storing a small amount of youth in it, then used the Atiummind, drawing Investiture from Ruin's body and turning it into youth rather than foresight. A small bead used right can return someone to childhood. He stored the youth that he didn't have to provide into Atiumminds and then had to constantly draw from them in order not to die. When Vin deprived him of his atiumminds, he aged dramatically (1000 years old) and died.

Burning atium

When Allomancers burn Atium, they are not drawing power from Preservation (or are they...?) but from Ruin's body, i.e. the Atium itself. Does it suggest that Allomantic strength with regard to Atium is independent from how much Preservation is in your sDNA / how strong your connection to Preservation is / how much Lerasium you ate in your life? Does it have more to do with the volume of Atium you're burning? Does a stronger connection to Ruin increase how much power you can get from an Atium bead?

In other words: if you Hemalurgically steal someone's ability to burn Atium, is the ability really weakened? This has to do with whether Atium Allomancy is really end-positive and of Preservation in some way (in which case the ability would be weakened), or whether it's strictly of Ruin (and end-negative somehow), and more power is considered a "loss" (in which case the ability would be... strengthened?).

This week was awesome! We finally got to listen to conference, which was amazing, and we loved to hear the Prophet´s voice and to be able to hear what the apostles have to say. It was interesting to me to see how much they all seemed to be saying "Prepare yourselves. There´s a storm coming, so get your testimonies deep, your eyes set on the prophet, and follow him no matter what." I also loved loved loved Elder Richard G. Scott´s talk, and am going to be looking at it and studying it. It just talks so amazingly about the things most important.

We also had a miracle this past week. We went to Conference, and after the first session, a young man who´s about 20 years old comes up to us (we´ve never seen him), and says (in essence) "My name´s Jorge. I want to change my life, and to dedicate my life to serving God." we responded "Well, the way to do that is through repenting, and being baptized." He said "Okay, sounds good."

He´s amazing. He came to the 4 general sessions, and is just incredible. We´re really excited for him and to be able to help him.

I love you all, and I love conference!

Elder Stay.

-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Elder Zachary Stay" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

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When a punter is betting on a live cricket match it is important to remember a few things that could help them decide which team, outcome, or even exotic bet to pick. During these In-Play matches, the odds will constantly change, as they are determined by how the game is progressing. This is why it is important to know which cricketers have good abilities and skills on the field, as well as which teams are good at a certain playing format. Use cricket betting tips free to learn betting strategy.

Depends on Format

For instance, a team that performs well when playing test matches could not do so well in the Twenty20. That is why it is good to always know beforehand about the two teams and its cricket players. As the match is being played, it is also important to keep an eye out for the weather, as this could greatly affect the outcome and can change unexpectedly. It could affect how well a ball is bowled or hit, and that plays in a large part to how well a team will be able to score – such as Indian players used to their hot weather going over to England to play – where normally it is a big climate change for them.

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*I don't mean this post to be a request, just an expression of my thoughts as a fan who's fired up about any Brandon Sanderson material.*

Maybe 3 times a week I go to BrandonSanderson.com with nothing else in mind but checking on the progress bars in his site header. I think it's one of the coolest things an author can do (especially considering the genre's writing habits) to post on the progress of each book. Recognizing that their existence is a gift in itself - I think those progress bars should be updated more frequently and emphasized for the sake of marketing Brandon's talents.

For many authors, progress bars would be.... minimally helpful. Not many authors have as much in the works as Mr. Sanderson, and on top of the workload, Brandon has been writing series after series that just sink their hooks into my mind in a way that not many others accomplish. At the end of each book, I am left with a raw hunger for the next, and those progress bars are like the scent of a juicy steak grilling just for me.

What I really mean to be saying (instead of just making myself physically hungry) is that I think those progress bars have huge potential. How many times have I read someone online say, for example "A new Dresden Files book is out?! How did I not know that?!" By going to that site, I know exactly what's coming down the pipe and have a good idea of when to expect it. That keeps me excited throughout the dry period when I stop following other series until I see the cover in a B&N storefront window. Progress bars keep fans hyped! Knowledgeable fans have got to be good for book sales, right?

Brandon deserves that hype. He writes like a ravenous animal, or some kind of machine that just churns out fantasy brilliance. Whether he is a fearsome force of nature or a fantasy Awesome-o, his writing speed is well recognized at every update of those progress bars. He's got a good reputation because of that speed (which is really time spent) and could probably benefit from making that better known.

It might also help this fansite to post a reflection of those progress bars in a similar fashion. Members who frequent 17thShard can tell you that one of the most recurring topics/posts is along the lines of "when is the next ____ coming out?" or "Is Brandon writing ____ or ____ next?" I imagine some Google searches lead new fans here before they ever get to Brandonsanderson.com, so it could actually be doing Brandon a favor to have them represented here as well.

I recognize potential consequences though. The quality of writing should be considered first and foremost, and having to hit an unofficial "progress bar deadline" to meet fan expectations could cause some stress. Speaking from experience though, I know fans on this site at least are very patient and understanding (though hungry, as I noted).

TL;DR - The progress bars on Brandon's site, if updated more frequently and presented in the right places, could be an excellent marketing tool to keep fans excited and up to date while showcasing his particular, genre-defying talents.

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Please don't send your critiques by email--replying to all means that everybody gets a ton of email each week, while replying individually makes it impossible to have a group discussion about the submitter's work. Instead, come to the Reading Excuses forums here and post your critiques in the appropriate threads.

How Often Do I Need to Critique?

We don't ask that you read every submission every week, or even that you read one submission every week. As a minimum, we request that you do one critique of another's work for every chapter you submit. Of course, the more critiques you can provide the better--but we realize that everyone is busy and that a good critique takes time.

If you want to critique a current submission but haven't read that person's previous submissions on the same project--for example, if you want to critique Chapter 3 of a novel and you haven't read Chapters 1 and 2--we don't require you to read those first two chapters first. That's why we ask people to provide the brief summary mentioned in the submission guidelines. A summary is no replacement for reading the actual chapters, though, so do keep that in mind when critiquing later chapters in a work.

If you want to read Chapters 1 and 2 but didn't join the group until the author submitted Chapter 3, just email that author and ask for the earlier chapters. Usually, people are pretty good about providing that (though of course no one should feel obligated to do so!), especially if it means they're getting a critique out of it.

Critiquing Guidelines

:

At some point in the future, I would like to get a more thorough guide to critiquing on here, one that will offer some tips both on critiquing others' work and dealing with critiques in your own work. I'm not sure when I'll be able to make that happen, though, so in the meantime I'll quote from the more general guidelines on the TWG archives:

Be fair (not nice). Don't be nasty, but do say what you think. And don't apologize every time you offer a criticism. Say what's working exceptionally well as well as what isn't working at all. If something isn't working, tell us why. Sometimes it's best to let the author figure out what to do. Sometimes specific suggestions help, but don't try to write someone's story for them. Don't spend too much time critiquing grammar, punctuation, etcetera (unless the author asks for it). Focus on the big things.

You get what you give. If you skimp on critiquing our stuff, we'll skimp on yours. We realize that not everyone will be able to critique everybody's submission every time. That's fine. We do think it's reasonable for everyone to critique at least one manuscript for every one they submit. Beyond that, do your level best to give as many critiques as you can without killing yourself over it.

Also, there's a great podcast you could listen to on the subject of writing groups. We heartily recommend it.

Sharing Work From RE

:

Don't.

All work submitted to RE, of course, remains the property of the original author and is protected by copyright law. You may not, under any circumstances excepting the explicit permission of the authors, re-post or otherwise share material that is submitted to this group. Anyone who shares another author's work without that author's explicit permission will be removed from the group's mailing list.

<p>After stalling the police outside his house long enough for Shannon and Felix to slip safely out the back door, John heads back to Shady Acres, where his grandmother has been successfully transferred to the centre’s coma ward during all the other excitement. As expected, she seems to be sleeping peacefully when he arrives. John talks to her as he sets up her personal effects, telling her about the incident of astral projection and other associated weirdness at Shady Acres. He adds that he’s got a friend in trouble when his grandmother suddenly sits up in bed.</p>

<p><span id="more-860"></span></p>

<p>“Oh, a friend in trouble, yes, yes. I think there’s going to be more people in trouble. There was that man,” she continues, before John can react. “He ate that other man. Yes, yes.” She keeps going in this vein, ominous if nonsensical rambling about people in trouble, until John collects himself enough to interrupt.</p>

<p>“Uhh. Is this one of the episodes I missed? You know I don’t keep up with all your shows.”</p>

<p>She retorts promptly. “What are you talking about, you daft bastard? Who are you? What am I wearing?”</p>

<p>“I’m… John…” he says slowly, more confused than ever. He doesn’t get the chance for further conversation, though, because his grandmother slumps back into unconsciousness as abruptly as she awoke.</p>

<p>Not long after that, Dr. Johnson announces himself with a light tap at the door. “Good to see you again,” John says.</p>

<p>“Good to see you as well,” Johnson says. “Sorry to interrupt, but we need to have a serious talk.”</p>

<p>“Has something changed?” John asks.</p>

<p>“I’m afraid so, yes. She’s not in any immediate danger, but if you see here,” Johnson proffers a medical chart, “her white blood cell count is dropping. This happens sometimes with comatose patients–it doesn’t mean they’re not going to wake up, but unfortunately it makes them more prone to sickness, which could be very dangerous in her current state.”</p>

<p>Johnson assures him that the transfer shouldn’t affect her quality of life. “In regards to visitation, you would need a scrub first. This would take two, two and a half hours, and you’d have to be wearing an environmental suit. Instead of just popping by whenever you like, you need to give us a bit of warning. But as long as you give us some notice, we’ll make sure she’s available to visit.”</p>

<p>“I see. This is worrying.”</p>

<p>“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Johnson says, “but this is a significant change.”</p>

<p>“Have there been any signs of brain activity?” John asks.</p>

<p>“Actually, it does look like she’s improving.” Johnson shuffles around in the folder he’s carrying and produces another chart. “As you can see here, her prefrontal lobe is experiencing sporadic activity. It looks like she’s dreaming.” He slides the paper back into the folder. “I do want to caution you not to get your hopes up, but any activity is better than no activity.”</p>

<p>“That’s good to hear. When is she going to be transferred?”</p>

<p>“We need you to sign some forms first.” Johnson hands John the paperwork that will authorize his grandmother’s transfer to the clean ward.</p>

<p>“All sorts of stuff. That it was some sort of mobster hideout, or…?” He trails off.</p>

<p>“Not a hideout. I’m surprised you heard about that, actually,” Johnson says. “Originally, it was a retirement home set up by one of the major mob families, so their family members would have a place to go if they lived long enough for retirement. Apparently there was a killing back in the ’50s or something.” He shrugs, adding that the centre is pretty ordinary now; even the clean ward upstairs, he says, is bright and cheery.</p>

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Last night I finally finished the book and I was blown away. That was an excellent read and I am left extremely satisfied. I'm going to stop the review right there because I have lots of comments and questions that will sum up my thoughts, so I don't want to repeat myself. This blog is going to be where I keep track of my WoR questions as well as just general comments on the book, the series, and the 17th Shard website itself.

SPOILERS! Yes, they will be in this blog. Don't read past here if you haven't finished the book entirely.

17th Shard Stuff

As long as we are on the topic, I feel like throwing out a reminder to members of the 17th Shard that including that huge spoiler tag on all of your posts is not necessary. In the Stormlight Archive board you are supposed to put spoilers under a spoiler tag. In the Words of Radiance board, you never have to type the word "Spoilers!" Ever. That subforum even includes a description that if you are reading the content you are expected to have read or there is no pity for you. Every other topic in there right now has a big spoiler tag for no reason and I find it supremely frustrating, hahaha. But I recognize it is with good intentions, attempting to help out your peers. Just wanted to clarify.

Anyway, Words of Radiance. It was incredible. I am increasingly impressed with Brandon Sanderson's writing ability. I've always been a big fan of planning and interweaving all plot points - a characteristic that is fundamental to his writing style - but in this book I was most impressed with the pacing of the story than anything else. It reminded me a lot of the ending of Memory of Light, but I think this one turned out better. It was a lot more synchronized.

I have another suggestion for members of the site, and mostly the site admins. I think we need to reevaluate and put into words what is "appropriate" for members to say on this site. I am mostly talking about swear words. I have seen members chastised for using swear words in their topics and posts, and I think it is a little bit overzealous. Obviously the site admins make the rules and there is no arguing with them, but if you consider that this site is based on the writings of an author who uses some of those words in his books... The people reading these posts have seen the words before. I think that the site should use those writings as precedent. For example, many of the stronger words are substituted for local cuss words in a clear attempt to keep things decent. However "damnation" is used plainly in the book a few times, so I don't think it should be looked down upon if members on the site use the word. This isn't an urgent problem with the site at all, but I do think it should be considered.

Remaining Conflicts

The ending of the book was great, but it did leave me feeling like we had solved nearly every single problem.

-The Parshendii seem to be pretty dead.

-Sadeas is dead.

-Our main characters have gotten over their fears and outted themselves as KR and the organization has been refounded.

-We have someone in a stable relationship (haha kinda) with the Ghostbloods.

-The Assassin in White is no more. He has been reborn and we are not yet sure what will come of it. He'll not have his Surgebinding abilities anymore, but he is running around with a Herald and Nightblood, so who knows.

-Urithiru has been found.

So like... all of those were really 2 book problems. Still on the docket:

-The Everstorm is going to be transforming the parshmen into Voidbringers. That is a biggie, obviously, but it is a fresh problem. I big one intended to occur after we had some KR, and it wasn't really around before the very end of the book.

-Nalan and new Szeth. We have seen Nalan killing Surgebinders, but Szeth seems to be under the impression that the only way he is not going to kill himself is to right his wrongs or at least be a better man. Let's hope that doesn't involve him picking up Nalan's whacked out sense of justice (yeah... it will).

-The Diagram and that whole plot.

The Diagram

OK, I'm going to get into quick notes on the Diagram.

-Mr. T makes it when he is brilliant and it seems to be working fairly well but we already know it isn't near perfect because of the 7 factions comment he makes and because he couldn't have really known about Kaladin being there for Dalinar and he really wanted Dalinar dead. Unless he suspected that somehow, but that could be an excuse for literally any event that occurs, so I'm not going to use it.

-Current Members of that entire unit, the Sons of Honor: Gavilar, Restares, Amaram, Taravangian, Graves and his team including Moash. I might be leaving some out, but dang that is a lot of big hitters so far. Some of them may not even know they are working with the others, but I believe at least the big names do based off of all of Graves comments.

- I am crazy intrigued by the idea of the Diagram and Taravangian's abilities. It is a such a fun plot device.

Individual Characters

Brandon fixed something in this book that pleases me greatly: I like many of the characters much more. Some of the more irritating traits have been honed, bringing authenticity and originality to characters where I viewed it previously as an obnoxious character flaw.

Shallan - I liked much more in this book. She had several of those elements in the Way of Kings that came across as obnoxious. Her attempts at humor and wit were more frequent in this book, but didn't feel nearly as forced. Massive credit went her way (and Brandon's way) in this book when she was able to gain some backbone and embrace her strength as a woman/adult/human being/whatever but not become bull-headed and arrogant. I went through most of the Wheel of Time books really disliking the female characters because once they all embrace the same strength, they immediately become overly stubborn and unhelpful in nearly every situation. Something that should be a triumph for the characters ends up setting them back an aggravating amount of the time. The scene when Shallan works through Kaladin's problems in the chasm - agreeing not to get upset and to maintain a level of understanding - that was a big moment for her in my eyes. She is also able to admit that she can be wrong - proven while looking for the Oathgate and having parts of her map wrong - which is another trait I am grateful for. It is refreshing. Of course it helps that she is a little more active in this book, what with all the sneaking and disguising, but that really didn't play as much of a role as her drastic improvement in attitude.

Adolin- I also had no interest in Adolin as a character before this book. The snotty/spoiled trait was far too accentuated in the first book in my opinion (though I guess seeing him grow does feel good). Surprisingly, he kept his head and made good decisions through most of this book. Another example of a character being proven wrong, accepting their faults and actually changing for the better. As much as I am happy for his changes and general increase in likeability as the book progresses, the Sadeas murder has me a little confused. I cheered a little bit, but it was really distracting that he could do that and still be up for a position as a KR. I only know this because Brandon said some Orders would be cool with it and applaud the move (he mentioned Dustbringers I know). Meanwhile Kaladin's spren literally dies just considering letting a murder happen. I understand I guess that it directly goes against protecting for Kaladin, but how does any KR get away with actual murder after saying the first Ideal? Journey before destination would kind of screw with that move, wouldn't it? Maybe different interpretations, I suppose, but that kind of makes the first Ideal seem weak to me.

Kaladin - Still my favorite. Love that he got out of his moody phase. The entire plot felt a lot like Rand's ordeal in WoT, and while it came sooner, I felt very similar when Kaladin got over it and got happy again. Syl is still the best, too. I was walking around my house and felt really anxious and worried for some reason, and after thinking on it for a while, I realized it was because the night before I had stopped reading during Part 4 where Syl is still missing and considered dead. It gave me stress throughout the next day and I didn't even know it, hahaha. They are a good team and I'm glad to see that Brandon is going to make them work for it, because Kaladin is very clearly his favorite, and I don't want him to be too overpowered. The scene where he gets Syl back and says the next Ideal might be the most memorable in the entire book for me. It was great. Also the Shardspear/changing Shardblade form had me fist pump in the air like a madman. What a great way to give the fans what they want (because he made us want it so bad, I understand) and do it quickly. It feels like all of the KR just gained some Green Lantern abilities in my mind, and I'm all for it. Can't wait to see what his return to Hearthstone is like.

Dalinar - He was in the running for my favorite character but he fell just barely behind Kaladin, though he did a great job in this book too. I like that he keeps his cool and is always fair. I know some people wouldn't agree there, but he makes all the decisions I would and doesn't bully people when they make a stand for what they believe in. Kaladin and Shallan stand up to him multiple times - hell, even standard bridgemen do - and he respects their needs without bulldozing them using his station as an excuse to have things go his way. Makes him very likeable. Bonus that he is given credit for being very clever a couple of times - a feat I don't think he accomplished in the first book. Love the scene where he is just like "Hey guys, what do I have to do if I want to go bond God as my spren?" and then just goes up and says 2 Ideals like he's reading cheat codes from a magazine."Cool, yeah, it went well, I'm a KR now. *Stormlight sucking*"

Renarin - Still could not care less about this kid. I saw a thread arguing why his decisions make sense and why this and that. "Oh he is secretive by nature! Oh if you look at it in this frame of mind..!" I'm aware that he has a mental problem somewhere, but it doesn't change the fact that he has been overall unhelpful and generally annoying in every scene yet, except for when he was helpful with proving Dalinar's sanity (one idea voiced) and when he pep talks Adolin (twice). Every other time I have found him distracting at best. If we don't see a lot deeper into his mind soon, I hope we see a lot less of him.

Jasnah - She's great. My hope is that the whole "she's always right" deal doesn't get out of hand. I like a character who can keep things moving, and she seems to be a few steps ahead of the game, but I don't want everyone to rely on her too much. I would like to call that at some point she is going to figure out pieces of the Diagram before they happen and totally blindside Mr.T at some point, who is going to have a new respect for her when she works around the god he thinks he was on that day.

Theories

I was right on a few, I think. I called that the Shin had the Honorblades hidden away, I called (though I found many did) that Szeth had an Honorblade, and I don't have 100% proof, but I'm almost certain now that the other chart is a Voidbinding chart and the symbols are the spren that activate specific forms. Pretty happy with those. Haven't looked back yet at what else, but those I can recall.

- I'll lay one down, as written above, that Jasnah will out-maneuver the Diagram at some point.

Random

Here is something I noticed and wasn't particularly happy with: multiple characters gain abilities in this book and then just completely stop utilizing them. Kaladin learns how to stick people to walls and then he doesn't use it once in combat or anything like that. Shallan learns how to Soulcast, acknowledges that Jasnah is gone and she is going to try to learn herself, and then never tries. What is with that? I was really hoping that those would come into play somewhere. Shallan Soulcasts the boat, but that is like chapter 7. Then never again. I would have appreciated some use (even over-use) of the ability before another takes over entirely.

I would like to give a shout-out to the members of 17th Shard that really see through the smaller details in these stories. I've read Warbreaker and I would never have guessed that Vasher is Zahel. I noted that he was probably a worldhopper (ever since Wheel of Time I have looked for characters that speak in unusual ways), but I would never have put all of it together on my own. I am a little dense in those ways. Maybe it also has something to do with my hunger for the main points of the story, but still. That is only one example of the great catches I see on here every day, and you are doing the rest of us a favor by sharing.

I'm going to keep writing as I reread and stuff, but I figured I'd give it a good start at least. Feel free to comment if you bother reading this. It is meant for my organization mostly, but if anybody feels like my opinion is worth their time, lemme know!

Recent Entries

Firstly, I was somewhat surprised, but very happy, to know that some people read the last entry I posted Thankyou.

So, for anyone who isn't aware, Shelldry is a game in the world of the mistborn series. It is mentioned a couple of times at most, but from when it is mentioned we can gather that it is some form of gambling card game. Partly to play with my MAG groups and partly just for the fun of it I decided to create a version of shelldry. It isn't complete yet so everything here is subject to change. The rules have gone through several iterations and the card backs have been designed so some significant progress has been made on it. I currently hope to complete it within the next fortnight.

I wanted the game to be heavily set in the mistborn world, as a result it is based around the 10 allomantic metals that were known in the time of the final empire and their relative value and connections to eachother.

I know that both skaa and nobles play Shelldry and many skaa wouldn't know about allomancy. However I decided for this that it was perfectly possible that the nobility created the game and that the skaa adopted it even though most don't understand the significance of the metals and sets.

How to Play

The game is played with a set of 34 cards, 4 copies of each of the physical and mental metals, 1 gold and 1 atium. The game is, in basics, vaguely similar to Texas Hold'em poker. As such the best sets are of 4 and the different values of hands are based on metal pairs.

The hands, in increasing value:

-no set

-2 of a kind (eg, 2 iron)

-metal/alloy pair (eg. iron and steel)

-2 * 2 of a kind. (eg 2 iron and 2 brass)

-metal/alloy pair and a 2 of a kind (eg. iron, steel, and 2 brass)

-3 of a kind

-2 of the same metal/alloy pair (eg, 2 iron, 2 steel)

-4 of a kind

-2 pairs, one from mental, one from physical (eg, iron, steel, zinc, brass)

Atium and gold act differently to the others. A gold/atium pair wins the pot (explained later) and ends the game, but neither gold nor atium is involved in any other set. Instead, atium and gold act as tiebreakers. If you and another opponent both have the same value set, for example if you both have a metal/alloy pair, and you have atium, you win the tie. On the flipside if you have gold, you lose the tie. This reflects atium and gold's allomantic values (Or at least how valuable they are considered by most mistborn, to all you gold lovers out there.)

In Shelldry there are two distinct pools of clips/boxings. There is the current betting pool which contains all the bets from the current round and there is the pot. The pot gradually increases in size throughout the game and nothing is taken out of it till the end.

How each round works:

-Each player is dealt 2 cards, then, starting with the player to the left of the dealer, each player has to choose to stick with their cards, or to pay the minimum bet (lets say 1 clip for now) into the pot to discard them face-down and draw 2 replacement cards.

-Each player is dealt a third card.

-Each player (in turn) chooses an amount to bet of at least the minimum bet, they do not have to match previous bets. These bets stay in front of the player and are collectively called the "betting pool".

-A final card is flipped face up in the centre of the table. Each player can make sets from the cards in their hand and this card.

-Each player (in turn) chooses one of 3 options:

1. Fold, and take back half their bet rounded down. The remainder stays in the betting pool.

2. Stand. (No changes to their bet.)

3. Double Down. Provided the player has enough clips/boxings remaining they can double their bet, increasing the betting pool.

-All players who didn't fold reveal their hands and the player with the best set wins the round. They take back their bet and an equal amount from the betting pool. If there is not enough in the betting pool to match their bet they take however much there is. They do not take from the pot to make the difference.

-Any remaining clips/boxings in the betting pool are added to the pot.

-The cards are shuffled, the player to the left of the dealer becomes the new dealer and a new round begins.

In the case of a tie, if one of the players has atium, they win the tie. If one has gold, they lose it. If that doesn't resolve a tie a player who formed their set completely from their hand wins the tie.

If that still doesn't determine a victor the round is a tie and the players who are tied take back their bets and then split the remainder of the betting pool evenly between them, with the caveat that each player, like normal, cannot receive more than they bet. Any clips/boxings that they would otherwise receive from the split are added to the pot as is any extra that cannot be evenly split between the tied players.

-The game ends when a player reveals a gold/atium pair during scoring (including the case where they have one of them in hand and the other is the centre card), that player wins the round and takes the pot.

Rounds in Shelldry should go a little faster than normal poker rounds while still allowing for some bluffing and psychological play.

Gold and atium make for an interesting risk-taking dynamic. If you get gold on the initial draw do you hold on to it in the hopes that atium will come up, sacrificing your chance to get a set of 4, reducing your chance of a decent set AND causing you to lose ties? Very risky. Atium is a safer, though still risky, choice as while it makes you win ties, it still prevents you from getting a set of 4 and reduces your chance of gaining a good set. A player who starts with one in their hand has to decide if the potential reward is worth the risk

An option for resolving things if the game has to end before an atium/gold pair surfaces is to deal a final round with no betting. The winner of that round takes the pot, split the pot if there is a tie.

The most recent modifications to these rules are yet to be tested so changes may well still occur.

The Cards

The easiest way to play is simply to take a standard deck of cards, take out all of the cards for the numbers 1 through 8, 1 jack card and 1 king card. Then:

1/ace = iron

2 = steel

3 = tin

4 = pewter

5 = zinc

6 = brass

7 = copper

8 = bronze

Jack = gold

King = atium

This is what I have been using during testing, however while this is functional it would be much nicer to have proper cards, so I have been working on designing them.

I figured it would be cool to have a table of the 10 then known allomantic metals on the back of the cards, both for visual use and as an easy reference chart. Partly due to this the cards I have designed thus far will be round, however as I know that round cards are much harder to print properly and cut out I also plan to put the table on to the back of more regular sized cards for those who prefer them. Circular cards are cooler for this, but normal cards are far more practical

I then ran into a problem in that there isn't any table for just the 10 metals known during the final empire. This is where a friend of mine, nard, (he has an account on steel ministry but not here) helped me out. He took the table from "The Hero of ages"

He then used photoshop to cut off the bottom part, then took the top part and copied it down to make a full circle. He then covered over all the unwanted symbols and most of the inner lines to create something looking like this:

At the time he then just roughly sketched in the remaining symbols. Coming back to working on the card-back now I decided that the sketched in symbols really wouldn't do the trick. Instead I traced out the gold and atium symbols from the full allomantic chart, shrunk them to the size I wanted and used them. Atium initially gave me a bit of trouble as it was too dark a grey and kept blending in with the background. I ended up adjusting the contrast and brightness to make it a much whiter colour that stands out better on the card (and is actually closer to how I always imagined atium anyway ).

That left the internal metal symbols. I could take them from the initial chart but they would be white and would look strange and asymmetrical on this new chart. I considered doing as I had with gold and atium and taking them from the full allomantic chart. However, I rather liked how the existing symbols fit with the background and how they contrasted with the new atium and gold symbols. In the end I took the symbols from the Hero of ages chart and simply inverted the colours on them then adjusted the brightness/contrast as necessary and stuck them in. I am quite pleased with the final result.

Closing Thoughts

Creating shelldry has been a lot of fun. I will hopefully finalize the rules and create the cards in the next two weeks before I go back to Uni. When I do I'll share it in the Creator's corner and upload the files for the cards so anyone who wishes to can print them off. I worry that the gameplay may be slightly suboptimal due to my desire to base it so much on the allomantic metals but I think I managed a decent balance in the end. I don't actually gamble real money with this and I wouldn't recommend anyone doing so , it is just for fun The most I do is sometimes I play it with my MAG players where they are using their ingame (regenerating) resources to try to temporarily get more or to gain secrets from the "informant" they are gambling with

As an aside.

I will be starting another campaign of the MAG over on steelministry.com hopefully in the next 2 weeks. It will be a multiple crew "cops and robbers" type campaign where there is a skaa crew (or perhaps 2 separate crews depending on the number of players I get) who are trying to pull a certain job, and a ministry crew trying to hunt them down. I have enough players to run it already, but I am looking for a couple more, so if you are interested just toss me a pm or create an account on steelministry and chime in to say you are interested.

Thankyou for reading, and if you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms or ideas please feel free to comment and let me know

Recent Entries

This is an interview I did with Brandon on the 24th of September. Thank you to Weiry for transcribing the audio into a text format.

So the first one we have here is: We’ve seen some hints of the over-arching cosmere story arc, what was the inspiration behind that originally?

I had an idea for a book when I was fifteen, just getting into fantasy novels--just getting into meaning, reading everything I could get my hands on and diving in face first--and I developed that idea over the next few years. I started writing and realized I was just no good as a writer yet. Which was okay, it wasn’t a big deal to me. I realized it was beyond my ability to approach, it was a vast, enormous story. Years later when I was writing Elantris I thought “Well let’s just pretend I wrote that book and it was awesome and it’s the prelude to what’s going on here.” That expanded into something much larger and much greater. I’ve mentioned before, part of my inspiration for this was the fact that one of my favorite writers, Asimov, later decided to connect two of his main story universes, the Robot books and the Foundation books. It was really cool when he did it and I felt what would happen if I started doing something like this from the get go. I’ve known several authors who do it at the end of their careers--well I guess Stephen King’s not even at the end of his career, in the middle of his career--saying let me tie a bunch of these things together. What if I seeded all of this from the get go and use this story, this awesome story, that I wasn’t able to write when I was younger as a foundation for it

Next one we have is on a similar note: When you reach the end of the cosmere will there be something else? Or do you feel this will take most of your writing career to achieve?

Yah, I think this kind of the Story of my writing career. Now, who knows. As I plotted it--right around mid-mistborn series time--I came out with thirty-six books, of which I’ve done what five or six? more than that...

Three, four, five, six, seven...

Seven. I think there is plenty of time so ask me in thirty years.

This one’s kind of similar: When or if you reach the end of that, were you planning on expanding more or were you going to get done with what you had planned and be done with it.

That’s really a ask me in thirty years sort of thing. I want to see if I can’t get this whole thing done. I want to do it in-- There’s this sort of tension to it, in that I view this as-- the arc is my life’s work. But at the same time I don’t want to be belaboring it. There are cool things going on that I want to get to and I want to tell people about. And so there’s this push and pull inside of me, wanting to do this. We will see.

Are there any eventual plans for release of things like Way of Kings Prime or the old version of Dragonsteel after the new version is released?

Once there are no more spoilers in those books I’ll do what I have done with things like White Sand and whatnot, that if people write me-- Mistborn Prime is a good example. There’s no real spoilers in Mistborn Prime if you’ve read the trilogy. It’s not a very good book but you can read it and kind of understand the history of where the story came from. So I’ll do the same thing with those books.

How and when are you planning on releasing Sixth of the Dusk, the cosmere short story you wrote for Writing Excuses?

Once the entire Writing Excuses team have finished their stories-- If you’re not familiar we did this thing were each brainstormed a story on air and then we went and wrote them and now we are doing revisions on them. Well, Mary went and I wrote ours, Dan and Howard didn’t write theirs, but they’re catching up. Once they are all done, we will release them together in an anthology. We will do, the workshopping episodes that we did, we workshopped each others stories, and you’ll be able to on Writing Excuses read the rough draft, because that will be included in the anthology, listen to the episode where we workshop it and then read the final draft, which will be in the anthology and get the whole-- see what we changed and things like that.

Here we move to more clarification type questions or different questions along those lines. Rather than more over-arching questions. We’ve got here: When are we going to see a mechanical way to use the Metallic Arts?

Once the technology is appropriately caught up and once I feel like it’s right. It’s going to be a little while.

We’ve actually had a conversation on the forums about using lurchers and coinshots in a way to power a train of sorts. (Brandon starts making interested? sounds) It has inspired some interesting conversations.

Will ‘Southern Scadrians have their own series? Or will they just be something mentioned in the next mistborn trilogies? Does anything major take place…

We will have to see. Originally they did not have a series but it will depend on how much time I spend deviating with interesting side-stories before I jump up into the second trilogy. Because by the second trilogy, this has all been discovered and its a different world. I have loosely plotted a smaller series visiting the southern continent.

This, I’m unsure of what exactly is being talked about because I have not been reading the forum: What happens when a Pulser is burning Cadmium and in a speed bubble? She'd be burning her Cadmium 20x faster than usual--so far as her bubble and those in it were concerned--and her slow bubble would extend far outside the area made "normal" by the effects of the speed bubble, so where does all that extra energy go?

Um… Send me that one in writing and let me run it through Peter who is my physicist.

We’ll do that.

And maybe run the math through Eric. He’s probably asking that one.

[[Official answer is that they would cancel each other out. The fact that one bubble is larger than the other may cause a ring around them which would be affected by the larger of the two.]]

That was actually-- I think it was Windrunner on the forum. I might be wrong [Transcriber note: Yes, you are. How could you forget Kurkistan?] I think that’s who it was though.

He’s supposed to ask me the hard Way of Kings questions, not the hard Mistborn questions.

Yah, we’ve got a couple of those a little farther down here but most of these are mostly clarification.

Does mechanical Feruchemy draw from the user or the machine?

Let’s see if I can phrase this correctly. Feruchemy-- I don’t want you to guess everything I’m going to do, then the books won’t be interesting for you in the future-- When I’m approaching using them mechanically I’m trying to keep to the core principles of the magic as much as possible.

Is burning atium related to Scadrian worldhopping?

(laughter) That’s a good question, the answer is no.

A lot of people wanted clarification on weight in regards to Pushing and Pulling, whether it has a direct correlation to the power or if its just something people say because generally someone heavier is going to push--

Right, right. It’s more-- the whole-- If you really dig down into it, and I’ve talked about this before, the whole mass, weight, push, and pull thing gets a little tricky when-- particularly when you through Feruchemy into the mix-- Are we changing mass? Or are we changing what the earth pulling upon you is… Generally understand that most people who are talking about this are not talking in scientific terms, they are speaking in colloquialisms.

This is the last one here we have from Mistborn: Did the Lord Ruler use lerasium to gain his super allomantic abilities or did he grant that to himself with the Well’s power? If he used the bead, does he count as one of the nine original allomancers that Sazed mentions?

Excellent question. He did not use the bead… In all of this he granted himself basically, he rebuilt himself to be extremely powerful and he did not use one of the beads.

Now we are going to move more to some questions on Sel: Would it be easy for a Forger who'd once almost lost her arm (freak guillotine accident) to make a stamp to lose it temporarily, or would it require some more involved Forging than "my arm actually got cut off that one time"?

No, and-- The more plausible something is the easier the Forging is definitely.

Is there a way to reverse the Shaod?

Um... (long silence) There is a way to do basically anything.

So it’s kind of a RAFO? Will we ever find--

No that’s not what they asked, they asked if there is a way. Yes there is but how reasonable a way that is is very--

Especially with the Lake where they can release themselves in.

Is Resealing a subset of Forging, or a separate system like Bloodsealing is?

Um… (another long silence) I’m trying to remember what I decided-- I was building all of this on a fourteen hour plane flight keep in mind-- I believe it is… Let’s go ahead and PAFO that one. I need to go to my notes. I can give you a tentative “I believe it is the same system and not a cousin system” but at the end of the day I kind of had to go to my notes and work things out. There was lots of wiggle room built into the Elantris magic system but I have to know what I decided.

There are only a few more: Did seons exist when the Aonic peoples discovered Elantris?

When the Aonic peoples discovered Elantris… did seons exist… Okay let me go back to my timeline (long silence) It kind of means you have to define what you mean by Aonic. The problem is if you dig back too far in history its kind of like asking “what’s a german?” You know what I mean? [Transcriber’s note: Curses! I should have clarified that…]

Because the Aons are based upon Elantris itself and so they don’t become Aonic until they are writing the Aons.

And Aonic is also-- you are talking about the people and so its like are the Normans Brits? Or are they Vikings? Or are they Frenchman?

Why don’t we phrase it as the people of Sel when they discovered Elantris.

No, no, that’s getting, okay-- (long silence) Let’s go ahead and RAFO that one, just because the history of Elantris is very interesting to the cosmere. When people are starting to get an inkling of that.

Odium was there once upon a time.

Yah… And the question of who built Elantris and how they built Elantris. What’s going on with the Elantrians back then and things like this. So let’s just RAFO that.

I don’t remember who asked this one, I don’t have their names written down here.

I don’t have my wiki on me, I’m not going--[[He was RAFO'ing this so we moved on]]

Okay, and is the word Hoed based off an Aon and if so which one?

Yes, it is. It would be Hoe… no Oed, O-E-D

And here is the last one for Sel: Does Shu-Keseg predate the splintering of Devotion and Dominion?

No, I don’t believe it does.

We only have one here from Nalthis, this one’s a little bit tricky. Can you store Breath in metal without the Eighth Heightening? Just put it there without awakening, just to hide the Breath.

Can you hide Breath… Yes you can hide Breath in things.

Metal in particular, without the Eighth Heightening. (talking over each other to explain question)

I would say yes you could.

What are some characteristics of and how many other wordhoppers are there that we have seen excluding Hoid, Demoux, and Galladon.

You gave me really good wiggle room on that one. Obviously the other person with Galladon and Demoux.

Right, the one from a future book.

His characteristics are… What is he like? Some people have read his book so they know what he’s like…

Which book is he from?

He’s from White Sand.

Okay, that’s one I have but have not gotten to.

It’s only mediocre so don’t worry about it. Let’s see what other worldhoppers I want to give you clues about… (long silence) There’s a Terriswoman running around, if you keep your eyes open.

I have to reread it, everything.

Who else do I want to talk about… Words of Radiance has a couple good ones, that will be pretty obvious.

When do you plan on releasing the Way of Kings annotations?

I’ve only written about a quarter of them. I have a sneaking suspicion that it will take me a few years just because its taken me three and a half years to get the second book out. So I feel a burden to get the books going before I do side things like this. My life got a whole lot more busy with the Wheel of Time than it used to be. Which has cut out some of my side-projects like this but I would like to do them eventually.

Why can Rock see Syl?

Ooh, good question, why do you think Rock can see Syl?

My personal theory here is because his people have such a strong belief and reverence in them it allows him to see them for that reason because his belief creates some sort of cognitive or spiritual pressure which allows them--

He would agree with that philosophy. I would say, usually when something like that happens there is also something physiological going on.

And this is one of my side theories that I espouse here. Is that kind of similar to the reason why there are no spren in Shinovar is because the people there so disbelieve them that it creates a negative pressure that keeps them from physical manifestation?

Good question.

Would Rock be able to see the Cryptics?

Would Rock be able to see a Cryptic? That is a good question, you will have to see.

Is Shallash the daughter of Jezrien?

Umm… Oh, yes, she is his daughter.

Two more questions here: Do bigger gems store more stormlight for longer than smaller gems? So a broam would hold it for twenty hours where a chip might hold it for six hours or something.

The cut of the gem and how flawless the gem is has more to do with how long the stormlight stays than size.

And the last one we have here is: Is it possible to use a soulstamp to give shardplate life or at least achieve a robotic status?

Wow, it is really, really hard to invest things that have already been invested. Let’s just say that, it is really hard to do that. Part of the reason why it is difficult for instance to push or pull on something that is inside of somebody because the investiture is interfering and you would have that similar problem doing anything to shardplate with any of the magics.

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About once a week I think of an idea for a story. Here's a list of some of my favorites that I'd love to develop

1. Billions of years in the future humans have conquered death. In fact, they have done everything that they could ever think of. The biggest problem is boredom. Every idea has been fleshed out. Every invention has been invented. How does a race of people exist if there is nothing left to do?

2. A sect of magical beings have dedicated their lives to pouring energy into a globe of heat and power. No one outside of the sect knows of the globe. The sect has been dedicated to this effort for so long all but the highest priest remembers its original purpose. But the high priest knows he cannot do what his predecessors have left him.

3. Children are born with a power to alter the molecular structure of objects around them. They are dangerous if not kept calm and happy. The more cognitive and aware they become, the more the power diminishes. Newborns can make objects explode their molecules, breaking covelant bonds in their toys or in their mother's hand, making the birthing process extremely dangerous and most mothers opt for dosing their infants during birth. Toddlers "play" with their ability. Pre-teens can pretty much only agitate air molecules to push or pull on objects, making them fly across a room. Adults can hardly make a cup budge sitting on a table.

Let me know if you'd like to do a writing exercise using one of these ideas. I'll join in.

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Fblthp is a creature featured on a couple of the "Magic: The Gathering" cards. (Totally Lost and Doorkeeper). He's very cute, and I fell in love with him pretty much from the first time I saw a picture. So, I decided to crochet one!

So, I guess I'll get everyone caught up with everything that has happened since my last update. There's a lot, so sit tight, and I'll try not to go on about any one thing.

Jezreel told me that, when people from Taiwan return home from traveling, people here ask about what they ate, rather than what they saw and did. I'm quickly finding this part of Taiwanese culture slipping into how I view my trip, as so much of what we do centers around eating, eating, and more eating!!

For clarity's sake, I'll divide the post up into days again, just to keep everything straight.

Saturday Cont'd

From Zony's house, Jezreel and I went back to Tainan, and met up with his uncle and cousin, Vivi, for supper. We went to this really well established restaurant (apparently it's been around for more than forty years), and had some delicious traditional Taiwanese food, including some dumplings, these beef and leek cake things, and some good old wonton soup. I did all right eating the whole meal with chop sticks, but I did make quite the mess. After dinner, we hung out a bit, and Jezreel's uncle bought me some plum spice and dried cherries from this dried goods store (he was a very nice man). After that we took a train and a cab back to Zony's house. Jezreel and Zony decided to head out to Kaohsiung for another night out at the club, but I decided to stay in and get some rest.

While I was resting, Zony's sister came home, and startled me awake, thinking I was Zony. She goes to university in Kaohsiung, and didn't know Zony had friends over. Luckily, she spoke pretty good English, so I was able to explain the situation and go back to sleep.

Sunday

On Sunday, Jezreel and I packed our bags and caught a cab to the train station, and our back packs on we headed out to Kaohsiung.

At Kaohsiung, we started out exploring the cool train station there, including the "Dome of Light," which is a really cool stained glass dome. Then, we headed out to the Kaohsiung night market, which is right by the train station, and got something to eat (pig kidney soup, if I remember correctly, and fresh dragon fruit for dessert). Then, we took a train to the coastal area of the city, and went exploring. Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan, and is the largest city in the southern half of the island, and is known for it's art scene. We spent a lot of time walking around the ocean and the river, and checked out a photography gallery, and listened to some live music that people were playing.

On our walk, we circled back to another train station, and after catching a metro to the main station, we caught another High Speed Train to Taichung, where Jezreel grew up and his grandparents live. We were both pretty tired at this point from all of that walking (and my back-pack was pretty heavy at this point, haha), so by the time we got to Jezreel's grandparents house, we went to bed pretty quickly.

Monday

We both slept in a bit, and woke up for lunch that Jezreel's grandmother had prepared. Just in case there is any doubt (I didn't have any) a grandma's home cooked meal in Taiwan is every bit as satisfying (and filling!) as one in Canada. Monday, we mostly just hung out at the house, until we took the family scooter to the Taichung night market after supper (both lunch and supper consisted of rice, a green vegetable dish, a stir fry with chicken, salmon, a soup, a meat dish (duck and beef, respectively, if my memory serves me), and fresh fruit (watermelon!) for dessert.

The night market in Taichung was really cool. Jezreel took me to a really well known shaved ice place for some delicious shaved ice with beans and ice cream (delicious!) and then we arrived home for bed.

Tuesday

Tuesday, I woke up for breakfast, and was treated by Jezreel's grandmother to a salty fried cake thing, two sweet cakes, one with honey and one with chocolate in the middle, and an apple (which I ate the core of). For lunch, it was another set of delicious dishes to be eaten with rice, including some delicious beef, and more amazing salmon. For dessert after lunch, Jezreel and I got fresh watermelon and pineapple.

After lunch, Jezreel took me out on the scooter, and went across the city to show me where he used to live as a child, after his grandparents moved in to his family's old house. Then we met up with one of Jezreel's elementary school friends who now owns a Taiwanese burger (consisting of fried meat, peanut sauce, veggies, and a little bit of sugar: totally delicious) booth, and tried some of his wares (despite being still full from a day and a half of grandma meals). Then, we quickly checked out an art museum before it closed (only the first floor), and then walked around in the park outside the science museum, and checked out Jezreel's old elementary school.

We also checked out a mall, where I found Chinese copies of a bunch of Brandon Sanderson books (Mistborn 1-3, Elantris, Way of Kings), and got Jezreel to take pictures of them (he convinced me not to buy them, since I already have English copies that I have read, I cannot read Chinese, and I didn't have much room in my already heavy back pack). They were soo pretty though (pictures will be coming, haha)! I did buy two English books there, since I'm running out of reading material, and the train ride home from Vancouver is going to be long!

Finally, it was time to head back, just in time for another home cooked meal. This time the meat dish was Taiwanese sausage (best eaten with onion).

After supper, we packed our bags, caught a city bus to the bus depot, and bussed all the way back to Taipei, where we promptly fell asleep.

Wednesday

And that brings us up to today. Today was Jezreel's first day back at work since I arrived here, so I found myself on my own for the first time since my arrival. After Jezreel left, I went for a run around Da'an park. Then, after showering and dressing (and chatting on Facebook a bit, since morning here is evening at home, and thus optimum time for chats), I changed more money to Taiwanese dollars (by myself), ordered some Subway to go, and caught the metro rail to the Taipei Zoo.

It was a gorgeous day outside when I left, so of course I wore my new shorts (purchased at the Tainan night market), and a sleeveless shirt, meaning I was totally unprepared when, just as I had reached the far end of the zoo, it started raining! At first it was just a light drizzle, but then I heard thunder in the distance, and decided that I had better start heading back to the entrance (it was about time to head home anyways). After toting an umbrella along through all the rainless days Jezreel and I were travelling, the first day I didn't have it with me was, of course, the day it rained.

I managed to get back to metro safely, where I (all by myself) refilled my Easy Card with dollars, and took the train back to the Da'an area, where Jezreel lives, and was happy to find it was not raining there.

Oh yeah, animals. The Zoo had a lot of really cool exhibits. I saw some pandas, a tiger, a lion, some hippos, some elephants (Asian and African), some camels (one humped and two), a crocodile, an ant eater, some penguins, some zebras, some gazelle, a bunch of reptiles, flamingos, and many others. They pretty much had everything you could expect (it's a pretty big, and might I say gorgeous, Zoo), even a Beaver. Unfortunately, it started raining right when I was nearing the beaver exhibit, so, since we have those at home, I decided I'd rather get back to the entrance before the rain got worse.

So anyways, that's my trip since my last update. I should be in Taipei, with regular internet access for the next while, which means I'll probably be updating a little more regularly. I hope you all liked the update

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Apparently it just isn't possible to make money off of authors any more. At least, that's the way it would seem if you take a look at what certain publishing companies are doing. And you'll be surprised who this one focuses on.

The reason I started http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com initially, was to warn authors of traps they can fall in, after a friend of mine has been deceived by a so-called vanity publisher. Well, she was very naive and did not seek the help of a lawyer, specialized in contract law, nor the advice of her well-meaning author friends or her writer’s group. After having her manuscript sent out to several dozens of publishers and receiving only rejections, she was so eager to get published, that she did not want to hear any warnings and signed her rights away for 70 years after her death! Not only this, she also paid more than $6.000 to have her print book published. Until now (3 years past the initial launch) the vanity “publisher” failed to format it into an e-book, despite his many promises.

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Vanity Publishing

For those who do not know what a “vanity publisher” is: These companies take on almost every book authors pitch to them, without concerns if the book is marketable, they charge authors outrageous amounts for editing, book cover and printing or e-book formatting. Many of these companies are printers who get their machines running this way. Others are just agents for author services, who receive healthy commissions from their sub contractors.

“Vanity publishers” don’t make money selling a book, they only make money producing it!

Now it seems that reputable, traditional publishers step into the foot prints of these “vanity publishers” and go into the business of deceiving authors. Many jumped on the bandwagon of the success of e-books and created imprints for digital books, such as “Hydra”, “Flirt” or “Alibi”an imprint of Random House, or “Blackfriars” an imprint of Little&Brown in the UK.

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They ask writers for a life-of-copyright contract that includes both, primary and subsidiary rights! (See the story of my friend above). No advance. Only the NET proceeds (means, after all costs of the “vanity publisher” is deducted) will be split between both sides. Deductions for e-books include, among others: the overhead and administrative costs of the “publisher”, costs for editing, cover art, formatting plus a publicity fee of 10% etc. – so the author pays for all these in the end.

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Publishing – but not under these conditions!

And if there is a print version, printing and binding costs,” plus 6% of GROSS sales revenue (NOT the NET sales!) to cover freight and warehousing costs. One has to do the math, calculate all this and realize that it makes absolutely no sense to sign up such an unfavorable contract. There is only one who makes money with the authors work: The “vanity publisher”.

Yes, the authors don’t have to pay upfront costs, on the other hand they don’t know what they will earn per book, while the publisher is assured that their expenses will be paid for as soon as the book sells.

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See what John Scalzi wrote in an open letter to Random House on his blog:

“Dear Random House: It’s clear you’re targeting new, un-agented authors here because no agent who is not manifestly incompetent would allow his or her client to sign such a terrible contract. But here’s the thing: New authors don’t actually need you to sell their work online. They can do it themselves — and are, and some of them are doing quite well at it. You are working under the assumption that these newer authors are so eager to be with a “real” publisher that they will suddenly forget that publishers are no longer a bottleneck to being published, or that you are offering nothing they can’t do themselves (or have done for them) and offering them nothing for the service — indeed your business model appears predicated on sucking as much as possible from them in fees and charges while offering as little as possible in way of compensation. Hydra is a vanity publisher, in sum.

Do you genuinely believe these new authors are that stupid? And if so, do you genuinely want an entire imprint of your publishing empire populated by such people?”

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Kaladin wakes up and tries to wake up the bridgemen. He then tries to get them to get out of the barracks, but when they go back to sleep, he pulls Moash out of bed and carries him out of the barracks. The bridgemen follow him out of the barracks, but when Kaladin tells them they're going to train, they ask Gaz if they have to do what Kaladin says, then leave when Gaz says no.

Kaladin finds Gaz and collects his pay, five infused marks, then bribes Gaz with one of them. Kaladin asks Syl to watch over him to make sure Gaz doesn't kill him in his sleep. Kaladin then goes to the lumberyards and begins training himself using a partially build bridge. He gathers a large crowd while doing so, and keeps getting surges of energy. After several hours, he finishes his training and collapses in an alley. Syl talks to him about her rapid intellectual development.

Chapter 15:

Adolin POV:

Adolin is grateful for his father's foresight in preparation for things that could go wrong. Nearly 50 people died due to the chasmfiend, and nearly 100 were wounded. Adolin notices the lack of disrespect for his father since the battle. He goes to report the casualty list to the King.

Dalinar POV:

Dalinar contemplates the ineffectiveness of the Vengence War. Due to the chasmfiends and their gemhearts, the Parshendi could stay on the Shattered Plains indefinitely. The Parshendi also have never given a reason for the assassination of Gavilar. He speaks with Sadeas and Elhokar about his lack of battles, and says that the means are as important as the ends, which shocks everyone as being very un-Alethi. Sadeas diagrees, and continues to insult both of Dalinar's sons, calling Renarin useless. Dalinar grows furious and says that Sadeas must have mispoke, otherwise they must go to war. Sadeas retracts his statement, and Wit appears. Elhokar asks Wit about his disappearance, and Wit then banters with everyone around, including Renarin.

Elhokar then mentions to Dalinar about looking into the people who cut his bridle on his horse, and Dalinar says he will take care of it.

Adolin POV:

Adolin and Dalinar examine the broken saddle, and try to determine if it was cut as an assasination attempt, as Elhokar believes it is. Adolin grows frustrated at Dalinar because the Kholinar house is always doing bearacracy, bodygaurding, and protection rather than fighting on the plains. Dalinar tells Adolin to track down several leads on the potentially cut saddle.